


sinnerman

by albion



Series: mcgenji week 2016 [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Dehumanization, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Vague Body Horror, talon au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:07:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8371795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albion/pseuds/albion
Summary: The asset is here. All is well.Day Two: AU.





	

The asset is here. He read that much. Found it, on a datapad that a careless agent had left out, unlocked, waiting. Secrets ready to be spilled.

He’d have to inform them later of that. Somebody was compromised. Or careless, as the case may be. Either way, they have overshot their usefulness.

He thinks back in the day, somehow, somewhere, he’d have hated a man like him. The Locks didn’t tolerate betrayal.

The Locks? Or were they dead? Dead in a locked casket thrown into the deepest depths of the sea, sometimes it’s so hard to remember. The sea claims all, in the end.

He doesn’t try to remember. He knows the Here, and Now.

The Kid stands in the darkness, waiting. The minute hand on the clock ticks by. Then he pushes open the door of the medbay.

The Asset is there. Waiting. It hangs suspended from cables in mid-air, a horrifying mimicry of balance and grace and artistry.

Maybe in another life it had been a dancer?

There are faint beeps coming from a heart monitor on his left—the soft whirr of the machinery tells him that yes, all is well. The Asset has a heartbeat. Despite its injuries, clearly sustained in recent combat, the Asset is functioning.

All is well.

The door closes behind him, a whoosh of air as it slows to a stop; quietly clicks shut. The Asset raises its head, and the Kid stares up at him, a worshipper at a shrine of machinery.

“Who are you?” comes its raspy voice, vocal processors disused and cold from the freezing process.

( The Kid remembers the freezing. It was one of the things he wished most he could _forget_. )

“They call me the Kid,” he says quietly. Almost reverently. The Asset was a Legend, and he was but a kid, standing before giants.

“I know you.”

The Kid finds himself blushing involuntarily, sticking his hands quickly into the pockets of his civilian disguise in order to hide the slight shake of his hands.

“I’ve heard of you too, you know. They call you a legend, say you was responsible for the massacre of an entire clan.” He flinches, lips twisting. Messed up again with the grammar. He hoped the Asset wouldn’t inform his superiors of his careless slip. He’d spent so long in training for that one, pronouncing his g’s, rounding out his syllables, until he was _perfect_.

( He wasn’t perfect. He was still the Kid for a reason. )

There is a pause, as the Asset regards the man in front of him. The Kid stares back. There is a human-sized tube behind it, filled with some kind of biotic fluid. Its right arm is clearly undergoing repair—the joint where the elbow would be on a human is sparking, cord frayed.

Talon will repair him. Talon is good to its agents.

“What do they call you?” the Asset finally asks.

“The Kid,” he replies simply. That is the only name he has ever known. That is the only thing he has ever been.

And now the Asset struggles to break free, its single arm straining against the cords that keep it suspended. It cannot get very far, in its state of disarray. It has one forearm, and no legs. It is _damaged_ , it needs to wait for Talon to repair it.

“Stop,” the Kid hisses. He reaches out, arms moving uselessly, waving around in the air like a conductor in front of his orchestra. He does not know how to comfort a thing in distress. That was not part of his training. He is at a loss. “It’s alright! They will repair all the damage. Talon will fix you.”

“ _Jesse_ ,” the Asset says, and its voice sounds somewhat distressed, “what have they _done_ to you?”

The Kid blinks. Once, twice. “Who’s that?” he asks. “I don’t know nobody by that name.”

He knows nobody by that name. The Asset has him confused with somebody else, which means the Asset will not be able to inform his superiors later of his grievous transgression. The Kid is safe.

All is well.

_All is well._

Talon will fix the Asset, and him.

**Author's Note:**

> full fledged fic probably to come because i've been Consumed by this idea now, thanks


End file.
